If the Revenue Department has its way, the State could save several reams of paper every week. It plans to do away with the need to submit multiple copies of supporting documents during agricultural land transactions.
This eco-friendly move, if implemented, will not only cut down drastically the use of paper but also help the public, especially farmers.
Revenue Department statistics reveal that nearly 1.48 crore agricultural properties have been registered across the State since April 1, 2009. Almost 9,000 reams (a ream comprises 500 sheets) of paper are used every month at the 248 sub-registrar’s offices (SROs) across the State. This apart, at least a dozen pages are used during each registration process by way of photocopies, including personal and property details, that accompany the sale deed, and the Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops (RTC), which has to be obtained at the taluk office.
Data centreCurrently, the SROs scan these copies and send it to the State data centre. Of the two sets of physical copies, one is stored at the SRO and the other is sent to the taluk office. Using the technology interface in the Kaveri-Bhoomi software, officials have now proposed not to ask for two sets of photocopies.
“As both the SRO and the taluk office are connected to the data centre, there is no need for a set of documents to be sent to the taluk office or stored at the SRO. Both can pull out data independently from the data centre,” said Kari Gowda, Special Deputy Commissioner at Bhoomi Information Centre.
The Information Technology Act, 2000, and Section 64 of the amended Karnataka Land Revenue Rules allowed use of digitised documents in land transactions as they carried digital signatures, Mr. Gowda said.
As the repository at the data centre has details of the property and the land owner, only the data of the buyer has to be updated, another department official said. This would also prevent the farmer from going to taluk office to get the RTC, he added.
